


The Fifth Christmas

by Annie17851



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Darkness, Destiel Christmas Minibang 2015, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:18:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5402738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie17851/pseuds/Annie17851
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years ago, they managed to lock The Darkness away for good- again. There were, of course, some repercussions. ( The Darkness has transcended human form so no Amara.)  The Winchesters still hunt and Castiel has a promise to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Fifth Christmas

 

“Hanging that angel on the tree every year isn’t what’s going to bring Cas back. You know that, right? Dean?”

Dean Winchester interrupted his own gloomy thoughts to turn and regard his brother with one of his patented ‘I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about’ looks. 

“A Christmas tree has to have an angel on it somewhere, Sam.” Dean pointed out matter-of-factly. “I let you put that dinky star on top for the last four years and never complained once,” he reminded Sam, pointing to the little silver star settled on top of the smallish tree. Sam had bought it that first year WC (Without Cas), at a yard sale where a 7-year-old girl was selling old decorations to try to raise money to help her sick dog. Half the twinkle lights on the star didn’t work, but Sam bought it anyway and put it on top of the tree every year just on principle. 

Dean sighed and adjusted the golden angel ornament minutely until he was satisfied, mumbling something under his breath, then turning his attention back to the younger Winchester. “And you know that little girl saw you coming a mile away.”

Dean smirked to himself a bit, knowing his brother would be rolling his eyes over there on the other side of the tree.

“Yea, whatever,” Sam muttered.

“I need a sandwich and a beer,” Dean announced suddenly. “You in?”

“Not right now,” Sam replied. “I want to finish this yuletide masterpiece.” 

“Your loss,” Dean called back over his shoulder as he headed for the hall that led to the bunker’s kitchen. 

He hadn’t intended to stop at Cas’s door, but he did anyway. Actually, the door that would have been Cas’, had their defeat of the Darkness not yanked every angel on Earth unceremoniously back to Heaven. Dean didn’t need to open the door to see that the small bedside lamp still glowed softly in the room. He could see the light in the crack under the door. It reminded him of angel Grace. It reminded him of the angel Grace lighting up in Castiel that night he was dragged away. 

“Left a light on for ya, Cas,” Dean promised the empty hallway, turning and heading once again for the kitchen. 

It wasn’t a long walk from the door of Castiel’s maybe-room to the refrigerator, but it was long enough for Dean to remember.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The fight had been so difficult to coordinate. First off, a disembodied, psychotically evil entity bent on destroying the universe was a little hard to pin down. 

Not to mention, to get angels, demons and humans to work together was a task of gargantuan proportions. Every faction wanted their own leader and none of them could decide who that should be. It was a logistical nightmare. Until Castiel and Crowley managed to let Lucifer and Michael out of the cage. 

Lucifer and Michael, by dint of Archangel power, simply took over. 

Of course, there had to be a meeting. Of some sort. The bunker was vigorously declined as a venue by the Winchesters, so it was finally decided to have some principals from each faction meet in the side room of an Italian restaurant Michael angel-expressed them to. Sam and Dean were there to represent the human factor, Castiel and Michael, in his Adam persona, for the angels, Crowley for the demons and Lucifer – well, Lucifer just represented himself. 

Dean reached out and snagged a breadstick from a basket that appeared with no warning via a waiter silently standing in the background. 

“I feel like I’m in an out-take from a Godfather movie,” he joked. 

“I understood that reference,” Cas remarked, glancing over the menu. 

“Good job, Cas!” Sam noted, picking up his menu as well. “What’s good here?” he asked. 

“Everything, I’m sure,” Dean replied around a mouthful of breadstick and then looked at Michael expectantly. “Beers?” He prompted, nodding his thanks as a tall bucket of cold, brown bottles appeared by his side. 

Michael cleared his throat for attention and Crowley put his menu down firmly on the table. 

“Can we get on with it? I have a business to run,” the King of Hell complained.

“For the moment,” Lucifer corrected him quietly, motioning for the waiter to come and take their orders. 

Orders in, Lucifer stood, adjusting the coat of his immaculate white suit a bit. 

Dean could barely look at him. Visions of Sam in that same suit, courtesy of that bastard Zachariah, hurt him in places he couldn’t fix. He distracted himself with another breadstick and a long swallow of beer. Castiel, sitting next to him and toying absently with his napkin, sensed his discomfort and gave him a small, encouraging smile.

“So, you’re just going to take over?” Michael asked, eyebrows raised.

“Lucifer led the battle the first time,” Sam reminded him coldly. “Let’s hear him out and get it over with.” 

Lucifer gave Sam a nod of thanks and addressed the strange allegiance of men at the table. 

“I know the Darkness. Intimately. That’s not as – pleasing- as it sounds. As you know, the Darkness is our Father’s sister. I realize you are all aware of the story, thanks to that worm, Metatron. She wants to un-create Creation in retaliation. Everything –literally, everything – will cease to exist. I wish to continue to exist. I want this beautiful world to continue to exist, whether you believe it or not. It took all the hosts of Heaven and Hell to contain the Darkness the first time and it will require the same effort once again.”

Sam broke in. “But we only have to kill Amarra, right? We’ve been trying to track her whereabouts for a while now, since she got away from Crowley……” 

“Bitch nearly broke every bone in my body!” Crowley complained, silenced by a glance from Lucifer and Michael.

“Anyway,” Sam went on, unsuccessfully trying to hide a snicker of amusement, “We lost track of her after that.”

“We don’t need to track her,” Lucifer informed them. “She is no longer viable as a target.” 

“No longer…? Someone ganked her?” Dean asked.

Lucifer smiled a bit at the hunter slang. ”She has not been ganked.” He explained. “She has merely transcended the form she needed to thrive and grow and is now manifested as the heart of the Darkness.”

“That’s my girl!” Crowley smirked.

“She’s definitely not a girl anymore,” Castiel remarked. “The Darkness is now a psychotically evil, disembodied entity determined to destroy the universe and everything in it. To spite her brother.” 

“So, how are we supposed to find her – it – now?” Dean asked.

Michael spoke up then. “Despite having a presence, well, everywhere, the heart of the Darkness is still right where we imprisoned it. Destroying the Mark of Cain simply allowed her to reach out, to spread.”

“So, the Darkness was imprisoned in an actual place?” Dean tried to clarify. “Like Hell?” 

Crowley growled a bit at that. “I know everything in Hell. She’s not there!” 

Dean shot him an annoyed glance and went on. “Purgatory?” 

“Thankfully not Purgatory,” Lucifer replied, flicking a quick look at Castiel, “Since we needed all that space for the Leviathans later. No, the heart of the Darkness was locked away in Xiaozhai Tiakeng. It is still there.” 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dean realized he had been standing in front of the fridge for several minutes just remembering. He opened the door, reached in and managed to snag a beer from behind the ham his brother was planning to cook tomorrow. Cas’s last words to him ran through his mind unbidden. “I don’t want to go!” and then the angel had disappeared with all the others.

“Fucking China,” Dean muttered, opening his beer and remembering the rest of the unconventional meeting. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Sam had immediately pulled out his phone. “Say that again!” he requested. “Actually, spell it.”

Lucifer obliged him and then added, “Heavenly Pit. Don’t waste your time. It’s in China. The largest sinkhole in the world. Made by our Father to hold the Darkness.”

Sam was still looking at his phone. “Xiaozhai Tiakeng,” he reported. “Located in Chongquing Municipality, China, and considered the world’s largest sinkhole. Measures 2172 feet deep and 2054 feet wide with vertical walls.” 

“China,” Dean repeated skeptically. “I hate flying!” 

“We won’t be needing planes, Dean,” Cas pointed out.

“Hate that even more,” Dean grumbled. 

“However,” Lucifer interrupted. 

“Well, there we are. Always a ‘however’.” Crowley remarked sarcastically. 

“However,” Lucifer went on, a bit more loudly. “For the sake of what you humans call ’full disclosure’, I have to tell you the finer points of the deal Father made in exchange for help from the demons.” 

“Here we go,” Dean muttered, opening another beer and giving Sam and Cas a knowing look. 

Lucifer ignored the comment, but Dean received a glare from Michael and he smiled back cockily in return. 

“Locking away the Darkness has the possible consequence of also locking both the gates of Heaven and Hell. Permanently.” Lucifer explained, causing Castiel to stiffen slightly in his seat. This wasn’t something he wanted to have to worry about. 

“God made a deal with us- the angels – and the demons, that he would make sure both gates remained open after the Darkness was locked away. Demons would still be able to walk the Earth and, of course, angels would be available to do away with them by being on Earth as well. Castiel, brother, you were barely even a fledgling when all this happened, so I know you have no memory of the battle. With Father in absentia, I cannot guarantee the Gates will remain open if we prevail.”

“What happens if we do win and the Gates close?” Sam asked. “Will every demon and angel on Earth be trapped here?” 

“Not at all,” Michael told them. ”If the Gates close because the Darkness is defeated, and God’s bargain doesn’t still hold sway, every demon will be pulled forcibly back to Hell.”

“And the angels?” Dean demanded.

Michael looked a bit smug as he answered. “Back to Heaven forever. Almost instantaneously.” 

Dean heard Castiel’s small gasp of dismay and put a hand on the angel’s arm. “We’re not signing up for that!” the hunter asserted.

“Dean, let him finish,” Cas suggested. “He looks like he has more to say.”

Lucifer nodded at his wayward brother before he continued. “There is more. Due to certain celestial alignments, we have to do this next week. The 24th.”

“Christmas Eve,” Sam sighed. “Of course.”

“That’s not all,” the archangel replied. “We need something else as well. Something that has to go into the pit with the heart of the Darkness this time. We need the First Blade."

Crowley let out a derisive snort. “The last time I saw the First Blade it was in the hands of a certain angel we all know.”

Castiel ignored the King of Hell and regarded his brother distrustfully.

“Why?” He asked. “Why do we need it?”

“After what has happened recently,” Lucifer replied, making Dean cringe inwardly, “It has been decided by Michael and myself that the First Blade needs to be locked away forever. There really can’t be any chance that someone could wield such a weapon again. This is not negotiable. Dean Winchester obtaining the Mark of Cain and the First Blade is what ultimately resulted in releasing the Darkness in the first place. Castiel? Now, please.”

“Yea, not the best plan I’ve heard in - ever.” Sam observed.

“They’re right,” Dean agreed quietly, punctuating his statement with another drink. “Cas, just go get it and give it to them. Then maybe nothing like this will ever happen again.” 

So, of course Castiel went to the ethereal plane where he had hidden the weapon, away from prying eyes and hands, and gave it to the archangels. Reluctantly, since, as he told Dean and Sam, “I really don’t trust any angels anymore.”

There was no argument about handing over the First Blade. The argument that took place in the bunker’s library a week before Christmas was about something else altogether. 

Dean slammed his hand onto the polished surface of the long table hard enough to sting, but he didn’t notice. “I’m not okay with this! It’s too risky!”

“It’s too risky to not do it!” Sam argued, knowing exactly why Dean was opposed to the archangels’ plan. 

“There has to be another way!” the elder Winchester insisted. “Why should we even trust them?” 

Sam ran a hand through his hair nervously. “We shouldn’t! Of course we shouldn’t. But I don’t see another option here, Dean, do you? Do you really think they want the universe destroyed? We have to go for it.”

“Really?” Dean demanded. “We need to do more research. I just don’t trust them, Sam! After all the lies and back-stabbing that we know goes on in Heaven- and Hell – we can’t just sit back and let them run this whole show. We’re going to be asking every hunter we know to join this fight. They could all be killed!”

Sam exhaled loudly in exasperation, watching as Dean began to pace agitatedly. 

“There’s nowhere else to research,” Sam said adamantly. “No more books. No one else to ask…”

Dean interrupted to wave at Castiel harshly. Cas had been standing aside quietly, hesitant to get in between the brothers, already knowing in his heart whose side of the argument he would take. 

“No one else to ask?” Dean railed. “Let’s ask Cas! Let’s ask the angel who might get sucked right back to Heaven against his will what he thinks! Cas?” Dean prompted his friend expectantly. 

“It’s the whole universe, Dean,” Cas reminded him softly. “I can’t worry about what might or might not happen to me when the stakes are so high.”

Dean paled a bit at that, his lips tightening into a tense line. 

“No!” he snarled at Cas, stalking forward angrily and pushing a finger into the angel’s unyielding chest.

“No,” Dean repeated. “You don’t get to do that! You don’t get to act like it’s okay for you to be yanked away. Like it’s just okay to leave m….us. Can we just take a minute here Cas? There’s another way. Come on, Sam! You find another way!”

Castiel closed his hand around the finger Dean was pushing into his chest and raised his head to look squarely into the hunter’s eyes. 

“I believe it will be all right,” Cas told him. “I believe the plan is sound. I have to. And if we manage to lock the Darkness away again and I have to return to Heaven- so be it. If we fail, then we are all dead and it won’t matter. But I will promise you, if I am taken away, I will do my best to get back to you and Sam. I have faith that I am destined to be here.”

Castiel’s hand was warm and firm on his, but Dean was very aware of Sam, standing at the other side of the table, nervously looking away at nothing, so he pulled his hand away from Castiel’s reluctantly.

“I don’t believe in destiny,” Dean objected.

“Yes, you do,” the angel told him. “You just don’t know it yet.” 

“Don’t make promises, Cas,” Dean requested. “They’re fragile and easily broken.” 

With that, Dean turned and stalked off to his room, grabbing a half-empty bottle of whiskey from the antique sideboard as he passed. 

Sam sighed resignedly. “He’ll come around, Cas. He knows we have no choice. It’s just….You understand, right? That he doesn’t want to lose you?”

“More than you know.” Castiel replied sadly, still watching the empty doorway Dean had walked through. 

 

There was an actual plan, outlined by Lucifer and Michael as the ragtag group of humans, angels and demons stood uncertainly, and angel-express unsteady, in a frozen field about a kilometer away from the huge sinkhole. 

"Why couldn’t this be somewhere warm?” Dean muttered.

“Just listen,” Sam admonished him. Sam himself had asked one of the more important questions at the very beginning of the briefing. 

“Question?” he’d directed at Lucifer before the archangel got a chance to begin. Lucifer waved a hand to give Sam permission to speak.

“So, we win here, you guys all get relocated to- wherever- so what about us? How the hell do we get home?” A grumble of agreement went through the crowd of about two dozen hunters behind him. 

“Good question.” Michael remarked. “We have already discussed the possibility with our brother and come up with something we think will work. Castiel?”

“Yes, Sam,” Cas began, pulling a black sharpie from one of the pockets of his trench coat. “There is a transport sigil that can be used. I just have to draw it on all of your forearms and recite a simple spell over it. If we win, if we- leave- all you have to do is slice through any line of the sigil and when your blood touches it you will be transported back to our point of origin.”

As he explained, Cas was weaving through the cluster of hunters, drawing, mumbling, and finally coming to Dean and Sam. He took care of Sam first and then turned to Dean, reaching out for Dean’s arm expectantly. Dean hesitated, holding Cas’ gaze for a few moments, and then finally offering his arm. 

“I better not need this.” Dean muttered. 

“Okay,” Lucifer continued. “Angels in the lead, then the humans, and the demons will bring up the rear.”

“Why are we last?” Crowley demanded. “My demons can fight as well as your angels!”

“Because I said so!” Lucifer told him coldly. “We will march toward the sinkhole. You won’t be able to see much of it in the dark, but you will be able to see, and feel, the power that has been unleashed from there. Father and I wrote the spell to bind the Darkness millennia ago. I have all the necessary ingredients collected. The First Blade, as a tangible connection to the Mark, the lock, will be sacrificed, never to be in human hands again. Once we begin reciting the spell, the Darkness will be drawn here inexorably. The closer it gets, the less insubstantial it will become. When you feel it, just use your weapons. It will look like smoke but it will be vulnerable.”

“Are we ready?” Michael called. “Weapons in hand!” 

The two archangels turned and began the determined trek over the frozen ground toward the deep, unseen pit somewhere before them. There were about a hundred angels in the charge and Sam, Dean and Castiel led the small clutch of hunters following them. They were just a bit nervous with the hundred or so demons behind them, and Dean kept looking back warily. 

“I still don’t trust them,” Dean commented darkly, walking between Sam and Cas, trying to keep an eye on everyone at the same time. 

“I don’t think I have ever trusted them,” Cas remarked dryly. “Even less so now.”

“I don’t understand,” Sam added. “Why not put the demons first? Wouldn’t they be the most expendable out of all of us?” 

Dean and Cas didn’t have a chance to answer, as they were now close enough to see, to feel, what Lucifer had warned them about. 

Ahead, in the frozen darkness, was an even blacker region. In the center of that, sparking up from below, they could see tendrils of something like electricity, crawling from the depths, charging the air around them. It was palpable and unsettling. It wrapped itself around them, smothering, repelling.

Lucifer and Michael came to a halt, and Lucifer began to recite the spell they had devised to contain the Darkness. As soon as he started, the tendrils from the sinkhole began to writhe, almost in agony. The angels, humans and demons turned suddenly to look to their rear, as a thundering sound rose up.

Castiel grabbed Dean’s arm in alarm, as the hunter was raising the sword he had brought, ready to slash through some semi-formed smoke. 

“Dean!” the angel said warningly. “It’s Aramaic. It’s wrong!”

“What?” Sam asked, as he and his brother pulled their attention away from the approaching entity to look at Cas. 

“Lucifer is speaking Aramaic,” Cas explained. “He’s talking about sacrifices. Plural. Not just the First Blade.” Castiel looked horrified and abruptly Sam realized what he was worried about.

“What?” Dean asked. “Come on, it’s coming!” Even as he spoke, the blackness had reached the rearmost flanks of demons, who were being decimated en masse, screaming and burning.

“It’s us!” Sam shouted. “We are all sacrifices. That’s why the demons are in the back, because they are the most expendable. They’re locking up the Darkness and the price is all of us!” 

In that incredibly short span of time, the Darkness had almost reached the ranks of humans. It was being pulled relentlessly toward the sinkhole, weakening as it came, as Lucifer had predicted, but it was slaughtering demons along the way and was ready to take the humans in a few seconds.

“We’re leaving! Now!” Castiel yelled, grabbing both Winchesters by the arm, ready for flight. 

Nothing happened. They stayed where they were. 

“They’ve betrayed us!” Cas told them, pulling Sam and Dean out of the way of the black smoke, using angelic power to throw them way off to the side, joining them on the ground, heads covered as they heard the screams of the hunters being murdered only fifty feet away.

None of the weapons the humans wielded had any effect at all. The Darkness swept through them like a scythe, coming up on the angels quickly. Still, Lucifer and Michael continued their spell, ignoring the chaos behind them. 

Dean stepped forward, ready to throw himself into the fray but Sam stopped him. 

“Cas! Get us out of here!” Sam yelled over the din.

“I can’t” Cas shouted back. “I tried. Lucifer has somehow disabled our teleportation!”

“Lambs to the slaughter!” Dean cried. “We have to stop him!”

“It’s too late!” Sam told them. Lucifer had stopped speaking, and with an ear-shattering, unearthly howl of anguish, all the tendrils of smoke were sucked into the sinkhole abruptly, the First Blade following as Lucifer threw it into the blackness. 

“Oh, no,” Dean moaned, pulling at Cas’ and Sam’s arms roughly. “We need to go. Now! We need to go! Look!”

Dean was pointing back to where the few demons who remained alive were beginning to smoke out, wailing all the way down into the ground. Sam wondered if Crowley was one of them or if he had abandoned the fight as soon as the Darkness showed up. He cast a glance fearfully at the remaining angels and saw they were beginning to glow. The Darkness was contained. The old bargain was moot.

Dean saw it, too, and turned to grip Cas’ arms forcefully, pulling him closer, horrified at the sight of the diamond glow staring to show beneath the angel’s skin. 

“No! Cas, no!” Dean pleaded. “Don’t you dare leave! You hold on to me! Sammy, do something!”

“Dean, I…..there’s nothing….” Sam was at a loss for words, watching transfixed as angel after angel simply disappeared in a blinding light. 

Castiel pulled one of his arms away from Dean, resting a hand on the side of the hunter’s face instead. His blue eyes were bright, whether from tears or the ascension process Dean didn’t know. Cas traced the line of a cheekbone softly, hearing the quick stutter of Dean’s heart as he did so. 

“You need to step away, Dean,” Cas instructed him calmly. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”

Dean put his own hand over Cas’, feeling the angel’s skin warming up incredibly fast. “No, Cas,” he refused. “You need to step away with me. Maybe……”

“I don’t want to go,” Cas replied sadly, looking up at Sam then.

“Sam, please.”

“Yea, sure, Cas, I got him! Cas……bye, Cas!” Sam just got the words out before the glow in and around Castiel brightened tremendously. Sam grabbed Dean around his waist and pulled him forcibly away from the dematerializing angel. Dean started shouting at the heavens and as Sam struggled to drag him away, Sam thought he heard a ‘Bye Sam, Bye, Dean’ drifting through his mind. 

Dean fell to the ground, yelling up into the sky. “Cas! You promised, goddammit! You promised! Cas! Castiel!”

Dean jerked to his feet suddenly, looking over to where Lucifer and Michael had just started their transition. 

“Lucifer, you bastard!” he screamed, attempting to run over and attack the archangel, stopped   
only by Sam’s strong grip around him. 

“Dean, no!” Sam shouted into his ear. “We have to go! The sigils!”

“No, I have to kill him!”

Sam managed to grab his knife, despite holding onto a struggling Dean, and he reached around and sliced Dean’s arm across a line of the sigil Cas had branded there earlier. Dean disappeared at once, Sam cutting into his own arm and vanishing a second later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel tries to keep his promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Castiel tries to keep his promise.

Years passed. Christmas after Christmas. The Winchesters were still the deadliest hunters around, and there were still plenty of baddies to hunt. Werewolves, vampires, the occasional vengeful ghost. As time went on, Sam and Dean spent more and more of their time being the new Bobby. Hunters called frequently with questions on lore. What is it? How do we kill it?

Every Christmas Eve, Sam put up a small tree and set that horrendous half-lighted star on top. Dean had picked up a little golden angel ornament as his own contribution to the sad pile of decorations Sam had collected. Every Christmas Eve Dean hung his angel on the tree. Every Christmas Eve he whispered, “You promised,” as he adjusted its’ placement until he was satisfied. 

Every Christmas Eve Dean retired to his room with a bottle of whiskey to numb his brain, waking Christmas Day barely in time for the dinner Sam always made. 

This Christmas, the fifth one WC, would be no different. Sam interrupted Dean’s reverie when he came into the kitchen for a glass of eggnog. 

“Dean? Earth to Dean.”

Dean looked up, blinking to clear his head. “Yeah, Sam, it’s late. I’m going to bed.”

Sam sighed. “Sure you don’t want to watch A Christmas Story? I have popcorn. You can make fun of Ralphie’s dad.” 

Dean grunted a refusal and headed out of the kitchen, snagging a bottle of whiskey from the counter as he passed. 

Sam couldn’t think of anything to say to stop him. “Merry Christmas,” he mumbled to himself. 

 

Dean was dragged rudely out of a groggy sleep late the next morning by frantic pulling on his arm and his brother’s voice urging him awake.

“Dean! Get up! You have to get up right now!” 

“Screw off, Sammy! What, did Santa actually show up for once?” Dean grumbled into his pillow, slurping sideways at a bit of drool he sensed in the corner of his mouth. 

“Just come on!” Sam demanded loudly, all but hauling Dean off the bed.

“All right!” Dean shouted, hurting his own head, stumbling off the bed and almost tripping over the cover that was tangled around his legs. 

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled.

“Just get some clothes on and come on!” Sam hurried him. Dean sent an annoyed frown in his brother’s direction as he pulled on an old pair of sweat pants. 

“What’s got you so damn excited?” Dean asked gruffly.

“Just come on!” Sam repeated, grabbing Dean’s arm and leading him into the hall.

The door to Cas’ maybe-room was slightly ajar. Dean’s heart started to pound and suddenly he had no air in his lungs. 

“Sam,” he managed to get out. “What were you doing in Cas’ room? You know that’s Cas’ room!”

Sam pulled his brother firmly forward. 

“Merry Christmas, Dean!” Sam said quietly, pushing the door open a bit more. 

Castiel was asleep on the bed. 

Dean froze in the doorway. “Cas? Sam? How?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. Miracle? Santa? God? I got up to put the ham in the oven and heard knocking on the door. When I opened it, he fell right into my arms and he hasn’t woken up since.”

“You didn’t come and get me right away?” Dean hissed, walking carefully over to the bed, still not believing his eyes.

“I went for you as soon as I got his trench coat and suit coat off and got him into bed. It wasn’t easy to get you up, if you’ll remember.” 

Dean ignored his brother and leaned closer over the bed to study the unconscious angel. 

“Is he wounded anywhere?” Dean asked, reaching out to loosen the blue tie a bit more, pull it slowly out from under the collar of Cas’ white dress shirt. Dean folded the strip of cloth meticulously and laid it on the bedside table. 

“Nothing obvious,” Sam replied. “I don’t see any blood, but his clothes….” 

“I’ll take them off. Go get some warm water and the first aid kit.” Dean directed him. 

Sam headed to the bathroom and Dean turned his attention back to Castiel. 

The angel was sleeping deeply, sleeping like the dead, Dean thought, and quickly pushed that painful image away. Dean unbuttoned the white dress shirt and carefully moved Cas around a bit to get it off. He left the white undershirt on, but pulled it up to examine Castiel’s chest and back for injuries, relieved to find none. He moved on to the suit pants a little uncomfortably, feeling the skin on his face flushing as he pulled the pants and Cas’ socks and shoes off, revealing Jimmy Novak’s dark gray boxer briefs. There were still no physical injures evident. Dean pulled the cover up to Castiel’s waist, mindful of an angel’s probable modesty. 

Sam was back by then with the first aid kit, a pan of warm water and a washcloth. 

“I don’t think we need those,” Dean said, brow furrowed slightly with worry. He leaned over and prodded Cas’ shoulder gently.

“Cas?” he tried, but received no sign that Cas had heard or reacted.

Sam shrugged. “Hopefully, he’ll wake up soon and tell us what happened. I’ll just get rid of this stuff. Coffee?”

“What? Yeah.” Dean accepted absently, pulling the room’s single chair over to the side of the bed. He settled into it comfortably, never taking his eyes from Castiel’s face, so serene in repose. 

“Sam,” Dean said quietly, looking up, stopping his brother in the doorway. “Merry Christmas, Sammy.”

“Merry Christmas, Dean,” Sam repeated with a small smile, turning and heading back down the hallway.

Dean reached out tentatively and felt the smooth skin of Castiel’s forehead with the back of his hand. No fever. Good. Dean felt a bit awkward, somehow, but he wanted to say something to Castiel. Or to himself, he wasn’t sure which. 

“Cas. Hey! Hey. Can you hear me? You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be all right. You’re home.” 

 

Dean was just picking disinterestedly at some ham and candied yams a few hours later, when he looked up and saw Castiel staring at him. The plate clattered to the floor, forgotten. 

“Cas! Oh my god, Cas! Sam!” He yelled.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas said calmly, blinking his blue eyes tiredly.

“Son of a bitch! Cas! How are you back?” Dean asked, reaching out to lay a hand on Cas’s shoulder to discourage him from trying to sit up. “Lay down, Cas. Are you okay? What happened? How did you get here? Are the Gates open again?”

“Slow down, Dean,” Sam admonished him, hastening over to the bed to help Cas sit up, against Dean’s wishes. 

Castiel waved the brothers away, settling back against the headboard, pulling the cover up to his chest, wondering in the back of his mind which one of them had stripped him. 

“I’m fine,” the angel told them. “The Gates are still closed. I was just so exhausted and cold when I got here….”

“It’s okay Cas. Take your time,” Dean said.

“Are you hungry? We have Christmas dinner,” Sam offered.

Castiel smiled a bit, glancing at Dean’s shattered plate on the floor. “Yes, I noticed. I’m not hungry, but I would like a cup of coffee if there is any.” 

“I’ll get it, lots of sugar, right?” Dean clarified, rising quickly from his chair to head to the kitchen. Sam bent down and started to pick up the pieces of the broken plate, smirking a little to himself. 

Comfortably settled under a thick blanket and warming his hands on the steaming mug, Castiel told them what had happened when he was dragged away.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

There was light. Heat. Pain. Ripping into him. Pulling him away from Dean and Sam. Castiel could see them only dimly as his vessel began to be – gone. He wanted to say good-bye, thought he did, but wasn’t sure.

Then there was nothing, until he awoke, lying on his back on soft grass and looking up into the sky of that eternal Tuesday Heaven he favored. 

Castiel was back in his luminous true form and it was exhilarating. But only for the briefest few seconds until he realized he was locked away from Earth. From the Winchesters. From Dean. He could feel his vessel, closeted safely away somewhere in the immenseness that was now Castiel. 

Castiel raised himself up with his brilliant wings and took in Heaven –all the Heavens.

“I don’t want to be here.” He thought over and over again. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.”

“I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE!” resounded out of him, echoing across the celestial plane and rushing into the true forms of every angel in Heaven.

Castiel finally went to Lucifer and Michael. “Brothers,” he greeted the archangels, casting his eyes down in reverence. “Father is still gone. I have a request and I believe only you can grant it.”

“I know your request, Castiel, and I will not entertain it.” Michael refused, turning and fading away.

“Michael is so resentful of having been in the cage.” Lucifer remarked. “I tried to make it as homey as I could. I will hear you, Castiel.”

“I wish to return to Earth,” Castiel began without preamble. “I think one of us still needs to be there, in case the demons ever get their Gate open.”

Lucifer was silent for a few long moments, then, “Castiel. Brother. You will remain here. We will all remain here. You care nothing about the demons’ Gate. You want to be with the Winchesters. Or at least with one of them.”

"Lucifer,” Castiel started, but the archangel raised an arm, a very lion-like arm, and Castiel felt searing pain as a fragment of his Grace faded and died.

“You are an angel, Castiel, made to serve Heaven, and that is what you will do until the end of your days.” Lucifer reminded him firmly.

Castiel gasped and raised his eyes in painful disbelief at the punishment. “Brother?” 

“Begone, Castiel.” Lucifer commanded. “Go back to your old garrison. Find something to do. Make the Heavens more –heavenly. Reorganize the search for Father. Your request is not granted.” 

With that, Lucifer motioned Castiel away from him.

 

Every day Castiel went to Lucifer, aching in his entire being, and every day Lucifer would refuse him. Every day Lucifer pulled yet another piece of Grace from Castiel, just for asking to leave Heaven. It became agonizing, more and more every time, until Castiel felt more pain than Grace. Still he asked. He grew weaker and weaker as the days wore on, and yet still, he braved facing Lucifer, asking again and again to be returned to Earth somehow. 

Castiel finally stumbled into Lucifer’s presence, Grace all but extinguished. 

“Please, brother,” he pleaded. “Let me go.”

“Never ask this of me again, Castiel,” Lucifer warned, raising a hand and pulling the last bit of Grace from the angel.

Castiel’s form dimmed and he felt the vessel it was protecting shudder in fear. His true form was actually fading.

“Lucifer!” Castiel cried out. “Why have you done this? I have served Heaven for thousands of years and what am I now? A Graceless angel locked in Heaven!”

Lucifer looked down on Castiel with unexpected kindness and sympathy. “No, Castiel.” He said. “What you are now is human, and here you cannot remain.”

Castiel looked up at the archangel in wonder. “Lucifer?” he asked, confused. 

“As you were wont to remind me, you have served Heaven for thousands of years. Go now, brother.”

Heaven disappeared.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

“Lucifer helped you?” Sam queried, puzzled.

Cas let a tiny smile show from behind his mug. “Very painfully, but yes, ultimately,” he clarified. “I’m not sure I fully understand why. Perhaps he just got really tired of me asking, but I was really tired of being gone.” 

“But, wait a sec,” Dean interrupted, involuntarily gripping Cas’ arm. “He took your Grace? All of it? So you’re not an angel anymore?” 

“And will never be one again, I am fairly certain,” Castiel replied with a sigh.

“Man, I’m sorry,” Dean sympathized.

“I’m not,” Cas stated firmly.

“Don’t get me wrong, Cas. I’m glad you’re back. We’re glad you’re back….”

“For sure!” Sam interjected.

“But, Cas, he took all your Grace! So, what, you’re totally human now?” 

“Totally, mortally human,” Castiel told them. “Thirst, hunger, pain, bleeding. I woke up in a field about two miles from here. It was almost dawn. Not a soul around. Literally. It’s currently very cold in Kansas.”

“It’s December, Cas, Christmas Day, actually,” Sam said. “But hey, I’m going to go and get more blankets and pillows for you. And there’s lots of Christmas dinner left. You’re staying, right?” he asked, glancing at Dean to gauge his brother’s reaction. 

“Yea, he’s staying. You’re staying, right, Cas?” Dean demanded. 

Castiel nodded. “I would like that. I can help hunt and I can even get a job. I do know my way around a Gas-N-Sip.” 

“Ah, the old Steve gig,” Dean smiled, a bit nervously. “You won’t need to do that. We have plenty of hunts and there is a ton of work to do here with all the files and books. It will keep you and Sam busy for years.” 

Cas raised an eyebrow slightly at Dean’s expectation of the ex-angel being busy in the bunker for years and his pulse quickened minutely at the sense of relief he felt at the words. 

“I’m gonna go and – do that, then,” Sam told them, pointing vaguely out into the hall. “We can reheat some dinner, too, now that Cas is awake.” 

With that, Sam turned and left the room.

Dean cleared his throat. “So, yea, food? Can you get up?”

Castiel leaned over and put the empty mug on the bedside table, then carefully got himself out of bed. Dean’s hands itched to reach out and help, but Cas was doing well enough on his own.

“I’m not hurt,” Cas told him. “Just really exhausted.” 

“Couple days rest, you’ll be good as new,” Dean predicted, wincing inwardly at his choice of words. “Wanna see the Christmas tree before we eat?” he offered brightly, in an attempt to change the subject.

“Sure,” Cas agreed, reaching for the shirt he spied folded on the bureau near him and putting it on. Dean handed him the suit pants and averted his gaze as Cas managed to get them on. 

The lights on the tree were twinkling warmly in the dim library, the few small, wrapped presents Dean and Sam had bought for each other lying in a haphazard pile under the fragrant branches. 

Castiel stood in silence admiring it. He looked back at Dean with a question in his eyes and indicated the half-lighted yard-sale star on top. 

“Oh, yea, that,” Dean explained. “Sam’s. Long story. But since he got to use it, I got myself that cheesy gold angel there.” 

He pointed to where the angel was hanging, almost hidden by thick branches.

Castiel reached out and traced the outline of the little angel’s wings gingerly, tiny ache of nostalgia spreading through him. 

“I missed you so much.”

The soft words, barely heard, stilled Castiel’s hand and stole his breath unexpectedly. He closed his eyes briefly against the hope surging inside him before he turned back around. 

“I knew,” Cas said, blue eyes meeting misty green ones as he stepped closer to Dean. “I knew it the whole time. I could feel it from you. It was inside me and it wouldn’t leave me, the loss of you. It’s why I went to Lucifer every day. I wanted to be back here with you and Sam.”

“Me and Sam,” Dean repeated quietly. “But, mostly me, right?” he asked hopefully.

“Well, yes,” Cas admitted lightly. “There was that.”

Dean turned serious then, reaching out a hand to Cas’ arm, then changing his mind and dropping it awkwardly to his side.

“You can’t leave again.” He declared.

“I won’t.” Castiel replied.

"Ever,” Dean emphasized.

“I promise,” Cas reassured him. “And I kept the last promise I made to you, Dean.”

Dean’s smile was brilliant in the golden glow from the tree. “Yea, you did, didn’t you?” 

 

Sam paused just before he got to the doorway to the library, picking up on the emotional underlay to the conversation his brother and the angel – ex-angel- were having by the tree.

Dean and Cas had fallen silent and Sam figured he better ring the dinner bell. He was well aware of the snail’s pace at which his brother’s emotions would manage to get on track. But having Castiel back- having Castiel staying- was a really good start.

“Soup’s on!” He announced merrily, striding into the library. “You guys hungry?”

Dean and Castiel tore their gazes away from each other.

“Sounds good!” Dean enthused. “C’mon, Cas! Can’t wait to dig into that ham again.”

Dean headed for the kitchen, Castiel smiling contentedly and following in his wake.

Sam spared a glance at the little golden angel on the tree.

“Merry Christmas, Dean,” he whispered.


End file.
